narrative atoms

A Challenge for My Readers – Micro Story Telling

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Post it 1505740990 A Challenge for My Readers 8211 Micro Story Telling

It has been weeks since I last spoke about narratives and stories. I just wanted to pass a thought by you that fits in nicely with my stuff on Narrative Atoms and to set you a challenge. I saw a great article thanks to Rob Alvarez, Bucholska that had something very similar – 2 sentence horror stories.

This fit in brilliantly with something I had done recently, so got me to thinking. How much story can you fit on a post-it note? How much text do you need to create a story in the minds of your users/readers? Read More ...

Her Story, Gone Home and Narrative Atoms

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HS Wide Her Story Gone Home and Narrative Atoms

Last week I wrote about Narrative Atoms in some details. They are basically small nuggets of narrative that can stand on their own but together build the bigger story.

Two obvious examples that I totally forgot about are the game / narrative experiences of Her Story and Gone Home.

Her Story is the fabulous creation of Sam Barlow. You take the role of investigator, reviewing a police archive of video footage of a British woman accused of murder. You can access the footage in any order you like, gleaning more clues and information with every video you watch. Sometimes the videos will not make sense until you find the video that came before it, others give you all you need in just a few seconds of footage. The joy is discovering how the story fits together, jumping back and forward through the timeline. New snippets of information give you new ideas on what to search in the archive, leading to many “Ahahaa” moments. Read More ...

Narrative Atoms and The Soap Hero’s Journey

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Narrative Atoms Narrative Atoms and The Soap Hero 8217 s Journey

Narrative atoms are small units of narrative or story that can, within the context of the overall narrative, stand alone. That does not mean they need to be completely self-explanatory, just sit comfortably on their own.

In a standard linear story, each atom would be placed sequentially, so their ability to stand alone is less important. However, in many games narrative bends and twists and turns in a non-linear way. For that to work, for a story to makes sense as it jumps from A to C to G to B and back again, each section, each narrative atom must be able to hold its own without the need every other atom to support it. Read More ...